Monday, November 30, 2009

nanowrimo stole my reading time!

As I have for the past 6 years, I wrote my 7th National Novel Writing Month book this November. The 6 week gap in updates is because working full time, raising a toddler who is a bad sleeper and trying to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days can zap even a dedicated reader's book time.

I did read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man for book group mid-November, which was no small feat, both because it is a long novel, full of many diverse scenes and characters and because Ellison is a freakin' amazing writer and he had me feeling completely inadequate as I was trying to craft my own story. I took solace in the fact that he wrote his novel in 7 years and when I was reading it I was about 7 days into my own novel. If you don't have time to read this book, find a copy that includes his introduction, it is an AWESOME few pages about writing.
572 pages.


I also read/listened to the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, which I bought as a self-contained app for the iPhone. It was a great recording by Simon Jones and also provided the text of the story as well.
And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer
275 pages


And in the 24 hours since I finished my Nanowrimo novel, I read 2 quickie teen romantic comedies in the car ride home from St. Louis. (Thank you spouse for driving and baby for sleeping!)

Major Crush by Jennifer Echols 287 pages
The first female drum major in the high school marching band has to share the job with a stuck-up guy she just happens to have a crush on. Either this book has some of the snappiest dialogue I have read in a while, or...I haven't read much in a while. But I really enjoyed the way the characters were portrayed using mainly their actions and dialogue and almost no background explanations or interior thinking.

Love, Hollywood Style by P.J. Ruditis 246 pages
A girl working as a page on the set of a Hollywood movie studio decides to try to all in love and have a perfect romance by making her life follow the formulaic plots of her favorite romantic comedy films. Nice movie references, but the writing couldn't compare to the book I had just put down.

And the main thing that I "read" all month was my Nanowrimo novel, which ended up as 108 pages (61615 words!!) with the standard formatting defaults in Microsoft Word.
Seeing Red by Lissa Staley :)

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